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August 11, 2011

UBS Picks Up 11 Advisors With $1.2 Billion in Assets

10 of the FAs come over from Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo

UBS said late Wednesday that it hired 11 new financial advisors with $1.2 billion in assets under management and $9 million in revenue, mainly from Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo.

A six-person FA team with nearly $660 million in assets and $6 million in trailing-12-month’s fees and commissions in Washington, D.C., joined UBS Private Wealth Management from Morgan Stanley.

The team includes Frederick Schultz, Lloyd Seested, David Andreadis, Richard Haskin, Eric Teichberg and Karen Ben-Shlaush. These advisors now report to Rod Von Lipsey, a private wealth manager.

“The addition of this strong team to a talented and successful group of UBS advisors in [Washington] underscores our commitment to the D.C. region, one of the key markets for our business," said Robert McCann, CEO of UBS Wealth Management-Americas, in a statement.

Dennis Dougherty and Bryan White are now part of the UBS Denver Tech Center office, coming over from Wells Fargo with about $120 million in assets and $1.1 million in yearly fees and commission, or production. They report to complex director John Lester.

Linda Gelson is joining the UBS office in Stamford, Conn., while Randolph Byrd is now part of the Centerville, Ohio, office. Both came to UBS from Morgan Stanley Smith Barney.

UBS is currently the smallest of the four wirehouse firms, excluding bank advisors, with an FA force in the Americas of 6,862. Morgan Stanley has 17,638 FAs, Merrill Lynch has 16,241 and Wells Fargo includes 15,194.

Annualized revenues (or fees and commissions) per advisor are now roughly $912,000 at Merrill, $867,000 at UBS, $776,000 at Morgan Stanley and $648,000 at Wells Fargo.

In terms of total assets under management, Morgan leads the charts in terms of total assets under management (AUM) with $1.7 trillion, followed by Merrill with $1.5 trillion, Wells with $1.4 trillion and UBS with nearly $775 billion.

On a per-advisor basis, assets grew year over year at a 5% clip at Merrill and as much as 19% at UBS. UBS has the highest AUM per advisor at $113 million, followed by $98 million at Merrill, $97 million at Morgan Stanley and $74 million at Wells Fargo.